Category Archives: saints

Serving and suffering for 700 years.

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The Metropolitan Church of St. Gregory Palamas is very close to my hotel, and it houses the relics of St. Gregory, who was Archbishop of Thessaloniki from 1350 to 1359 A.D. I really appreciate St. Gregory and for months I’ve been looking forward to visiting his church.

I’m devoting an entire post to the subject because of the relationship of this particular site and temple to other churches in the city, and because of its unique role during the 400 years of Ottoman rule.

It was built in the 13th and 14th centuries and originally was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but after the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1430, and the conversion of St. Demetrios Cathedral into a mosque in 1491, this church was re-christened after that saint, who is the city’s patron. After the (Rotonda) Cathedral of St. George was also converted into a mosque in 1591, and this temple remained a place of Christian worship, it was designated the cathedral church of Thessaloniki.

The Greeks rose up against Ottoman rule at various times over the centuries; during the revolution of 1821, hundreds of Thessalonians sought refuge in the church, but the Ottomans broke down the doors and massacred them.

The building was entirely destroyed in a fire in 1890, and fully rebuilt by 1909. By the time it was consecrated, the old St. Demetrios church was functioning as a Christian church again, and that’s when the newly rebuilt church was dedicated to St. Gregory Palamas, in 1914. Later in the 20th century it had to be repaired after an earthquake damaged it.

I often think of how buildings have lives. A building that is consecrated for worship has a particular “calling,” if you will, and is often a revered member and bedrock of the community. The Church of St. Gregory Palamas has served for 700 years, and during those centuries has suffered from earthquake, fire, and sword.

Today when I walked past, I stopped at the little booth shrine outside by the street, where candle fires were symbolizing a whole lake of prayers (sorry about the glare on the face of the icon):

The last fifty years — such a brief span of time in the context of this city — seem to have been peaceful, and if the temple were sentient, it would no doubt be happy that it’s one of the most popular churches in Thessaloniki for weddings. The first day I stopped in, they were getting ready for such an event.

But the presence of the relics of St. Gregory, deposited there in 1914 when the church was dedicated to him, are the greatest blessing to the temple and the people.

May the Lord continue to make His temple a blessing to the city of Thessaloniki.

St. Paul preached here.

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The Apostle Paul visited Thessaloniki on his second missionary journey, when it was called Thessalonica. He stayed in the city teaching in the synagogue and encouraging the Christians for at least three Saturdays/Sabbaths.

Maria and I visited the place where tradition has it that he preached, on which site Vlatadon Monastery was founded in the 14th century. Of all the monasteries in the city, is the only one still active, though there are many newer ones in surrounding more rural areas.

When Thessaloniki fell to the Ottomans in 1430, and the majority of churches were turned into mosques, the wall frescoes were punctured to facilitate plastering over them.

After we toured the monastery church and shady, peaceful gardens, Maria suggested we sit on a bench and read from one of St. Paul’s letters. It was not one he’d written to the Thessalonians, but the famous Love Chapter, I Corinthians 13:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;  does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;  does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

“Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

-St. Paul, to the Church at Corinth

Ormylia and Souroti

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The relics of Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra are kept at the Holy Monastery of the Annunciation in Ormylia, and the grave of Saint Paisios of Mount Athos is in Souroti, at the Holy Monastery of St. John the Theologian.

Today my friend and sister in Christ who is also a tour guide drove us to both of these holy sites, where I received great blessings that I don’t feel capable of a expressing in a worthy way.

I’d been looking forward to this visit for nearly a year, and praying that God would make it happen, that He would prevent all the things that could go wrong and change my plans. And He did.

For now I’m only going to post a few photos from the monasteries; if ever you are interested when I get a chance to talk to you in person, I will try to tell you specifics about things that happened, people I talked to, and what I learned. Until then, I mostly wanted you to know that I made my pilgrimage there, glory to God.

What springs from unity.

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St. Gregory Nazianzus (or Nazianzen), also known as St. Gregory the Theologian, is one of the Three Holy Hierarchs of the Orthodox Church, along with St. Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom; and one of The Cappadocian Fathers, along with St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Basil the Great (of Caesarea). He has been called The Trinitarian Theologian, and you can read a snippet of such theology below. I was intrigued by his also being called The Minstrel of the Holy Trinity, evidently because of his poetic style, and spiritual poetry. I will be looking more into that.

“The opinions about deity that hold pride of place are in number: atheism, polytheism and monotheism. With the first two the children of Greece amused themselves. Let the game go on! Atheism with its lack of a governing principle involves disorder. Polytheism with a plurality of such principles, involves faction and hence the absence of a governing principle, and this involves disorder again. Both lead to an identical result — lack of order, which, in turn, leads to disintegration.

“Monotheism, with its single governing principle, is what we value — not monotheism defined as the sovereignty of a single person (after all, self-discordant unity can become a plurality) but the single rule produced by equality of nature, harmony of will, identity of action and the convergence towards their source of what springs from unity — none of which is possible in the case of created nature.

“The result is that though there is numerical distinction, there is no division, there is no division of the substance. For this reason, a one eternally changes into a two and stops at three — meaning the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In a serene, non-temporal, incorporeal way the Father is parent of the ‘offspring’.”

―St. Gregory of Nazianzus, d. 390, The Five Theological Orations

I’ve been plugging away at reading The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, in which Vladimir Lossky gives a history of Christian understanding of God as He has revealed Himself, in which story St. Gregory’s doctrine plays a major role. It’s a stretch for my untrained mind to follow the thoughts of these venerable fathers of antiquity, who who were not only extraordinary scholars, but holy men: St. Gregory often emphasizes that even to begin to think well about God it is most necessary to have a repentant heart. So I will close with his exhortation to those who might think more highly of their theologizing than they ought (from Oration 20), which I find heartening right now:

“If you trust me, then — and I am no rash theologian! — grasp what you can, and pray to grasp the rest. Love what already abides within you, and let the rest await you in the treasury above. Approach it by the way you live: what is pure can only be acquired through purification… Keep the commandments, make your way forward through observing the precepts: for the practical life is the launching-pad for contemplation. Start with the body, but find joy in working for your soul.

“… the most perfect of all things that exist is the knowledge of God. Let us, then, hold on to what we have and acquire what we can, as long as we live on earth; and let us store our treasure there in heaven, so that we may possess this reward of our labor: the full illumination of the holy Trinity—what it is, its qualities and its greatness, if I may put it this way—shining in Christ himself, our Lord, to whom be glory and power for the ages of ages. Amen.”